From what I understand of the NASA thing is that they are partnering with potentially China for any flights into space for the next little bit, 65 million a person. Otherwise they are remaining active in all other capacities. I also read that the reason being was the costs versus rewards were too unbalanced so the government wanted to leave local space travel up to big business, hoping the competition would produce some handy dandy new technology.
Of course if there were new technologies produced, those companies would have all ownership of them, and America would be forced into bidding wars with other countries for the blueprints. In the middle of a falling economy the likely-hood of them winning that bidding war is low. Risky business out there in the real world.

"I think of myself as an intelligent, sensitive human being with the soul of a clown which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments." -Jim Morrison

a week ago I would have laughed at the idea of aliens visiting earth but Michio Kaku ( a WELL known and respected physicist) has raised some good points that make it less laughable and more something that could allow for real thought and maybe even debate.

I certainly believe in other life other than ours. How dare anyone seek to fathom that humans are the only beings in existence. In a universe that is boundless where life does not have to walk on twos, fours, or any other number we have yet to encounter what maybe totally alien in creation to us. For me alone the vastness of our galaxy is enough for me to consider that we aren't alone in the void. We mistakenly attempt to map the sky according to the view of our planet and don't consider that the heavenly bodies are moving on a continuous course to anywhere. Our position is fixed in the void but liable to change by any means. Other life just maybe more extreme and complex that if seen would drive our central beliefs toward oblivion. Forget the world turning upside down, our minds would be blown to even know how to communicate with outer-world beings. (As we humans always attempt to do when something strange comes into our view). We put more energy into destroying each other instead of being ready to traverse interstellar space efficiently. I myself could divulge ideas on how it can be possible, but as there are many untapped inventors with incredible ideas that may promote similar ideas we can't simply discount anything for we are creative naturally.
If we can be destructive in creation, we should not think whatsoever that there may be worst to face in the future.

being only 17 i hope something happens by the time im older, there is a company that wishes to send man to mars by 2020 so i hope they succeed, as for aliens they proberly exist but there not making contact with us, no hill billy has really seen a ufo.

(15-06-2011 11:56 AM)Lilith Pride Wrote: I find it hard to be that certain we will never travel through space as technology is constantly improving faster and faster. As long as we don't die out we'll have begun maintaining space stations and traveling through space rather normally within the next century.

Did you enter this world through a membrane connected to another reality or something? Nobody has traveled beyond low Earth orbit since the last Apollo mission, we don't have a space shuttle any more, and the astronauts on the space station have to do an emergency evacuation in November because the supply ship just crashed. Our civilization looks like it plans to give up on manned space travel.

A near sighted mimd cannot see into the future. We have gone nowhere. To lilith p, never should you insult anothers ideas or intelligence to accentuate your views. Traversing our solar system is nothing but baby steps into the void. Technology is extremely far behind due to it needing money constantly to evolve. Leaving it to the powers that be only hastens progress from all. Just because one is skilled means not that they are the authority. You or anyone else for that matter are capable of searching for yourself. Literally! We limit ourselves because we don't want to too expand our minds enough, beyond free thinking to push the envelope. Fly on your own wings.

Looking at sacred geometry (the flower of life, metatrons cube etc etc) IF there is a blue print to life then i think similar life to us can be created quite easily.

The universe is infinitly massive compared to my small human perpspective of it all.....so to say that there isnt life out there would be just as foolish to say that there is, because none of us can actually say for sure lol.

When we start cruising space if we was to come across a planet like ours.......where the bipods there were very primitive and were only starting to grasp language......what would we do???

Would you give these "monkeys" access to our weaponry and immensly superior technology??? Would you try and integrate them into your own society??? Or would you see it as a unique oppurtunity to watch and see how they get on......in an attempt to maybe work out how we ourselves once were and to study primitive life.

Maybe more ancient civilisations/life has evolved much further to us to a degree that if they were to try and understand us........would be like us trying to communicate with apes in comparison.

What could we possibly offer other space traveling species other than the oppurtunity to be studied and the oppurtunity for us to be exploited and that of the planet, however I think if a ship can travel freely great distances around the universe, then they wont be lacking in anything we could offer them.

For no matter how much I use these symbols, to describe symptoms of my existence.
You are your own emphasis.
So I say nothing.